


shades

by gotham_ruaidh



Series: Gotham Writes for Imagine Claire & Jamie [90]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-06-14 11:33:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15387873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotham_ruaidh/pseuds/gotham_ruaidh
Summary: New York City, 1925. Jamie Fraser is an artist, commissioned by Frank Randall to paint a portrait of his wife, Claire.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted at [Imagine Claire & Jamie](https://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/176126736638/imagine-jamie-being-a-young-and-important-visual) on tumblr

When the telephone rang, she adjusted the volume on the radio and set down her teacup.

“Randall residence.”

“It’s ready.”

She sat up a bit straighter. “Really?”

“Yes.” Not even the static crackling on the line could mask the burr in his voice. “I canna wait for you to see it.”

With her free hand she flicked off the radio and slipped on her shoes. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

–

It was just a few steps from the townhouse on 68th Street to the Third Avenue Elevated. Claire thrilled in riding the subway high above the traffic, peering through the windows of buildings as the car chugged by. Watching families eat dinner, housewives hang laundry, husbands pore over the sports pages. Secret glimpses into lives she would never know.

Claire Beauchamp Randall was quite good at keeping secrets.

In less than twenty minutes she disembarked at 14th Street, carefully made her way down the iron steps that swayed as the trains passed back and forth, and walked in the shadow of the elevated tracks on Third Avenue until she turned left at 12th Street.

Halfway down the block was the iron gate behind which she had found so much. The gate guarded entry to what appeared to be a small courtyard, but was actually a cluster of four carriage houses – two facing another set of two, with a small patch of grass in between – which thirty years ago had been where the wealthy families in the area had boarded their horses. Many had been destroyed in the name of progress, now that the automobile ruled the city’s streets – but time had barely touched this leafy block, packed with dozens of graceful diagonal stoops leading into brownstones.

Four boys played stickball in the street, taking no notice of the well-dressed woman pass by.

Finally she arrived – and he was there, waiting for her. Jamie opened the gate, and she nodded a quick hello, removing her hat as she stepped into the courtyard. Jamie locked the gate and turned to enter his studio; she didn’t need him to ask her to follow. Thirty five steps later they were safely inside the main studio on the first floor – the ceiling twenty feet high, the late afternoon sunlight pouring through the five round windows, the sharp smells of tempera and turpentine jolting her senses.

Before she could put her hat and coat on the table, she was in Jamie’s arms.

–

Shyly she reached out to touch the edge of the canvas. “I can’t believe that’s me.”

Jamie’s lips lifted in that half smile she always loved to kiss. He looked at his work – then back at Claire, naked and flushed and rumpled on his bed – and then back at the painting.

“It’s you,” he insisted. “It’s how I see you.”

Frank Randall had commissioned a portrait of his wife in celebration of her thirtieth birthday. Something grand to hang in the entryway of their townhouse – to show her off to the revolving door of socialites and business associates and politicians who attended the parties that Claire held every week. Frank limited her volunteer work at Bellevue to just ten hours a week – and to punish him for that, she spent more than half his income on extravagant soirees and balls and cocktail parties and salons.

Beautiful, witty, charming, with a tongue saltier than a seasoned sailor – an invitation to Claire’s parties meant that you had arrived on the New York City social scene.

Jamie Fraser – photographer, painter, poet, and sometimes taxi driver – secured an invitation through Edward Gowan, a successful lawyer turned amateur painter to whom he gave art lessons twice a week. He had literally met Ned on the street – collided with him on the corner of Second Avenue and St. Mark’s Place, his arms full of fresh canvases – and this chance meeting had blossomed into a fruitful partnership.

For Ned was still the Randall family attorney, despite his advanced age, and as such had an open invitation to any and all events at the Randall townhouse. Six months prior, in the dead of winter, he had paid for a new suit of clothes for Jamie and shared a cab with him uptown.

It was the easiest commission Jamie had ever received – he had been half distracted with the incredible Art Nouveau furniture and mirrors and light fixtures – and he had let Ned do all the negotiating.

That was the first night he had met Claire – Claire, vibrant in a floor-length dress of electric blue, her untamed curls wild around her face, sipping from glass after glass of illegal champagne. Her eyes so sad.

Three days later was her first visit to his studio. They had spent that first day just talking – her about Klimt and O’Keeffe and Picasso and Man Ray; him about how he had learned to paint from his mother, how he frequented the German beer halls down on the Bowery to fill notebooks with drawings of faces and hands and shoes, how much he loved photographing the entryways of old buildings.

The connection was instant. Undeniable. But she was married.

It truly began once they agreed on a pose for the portrait – standing in her parlor, one arm leaning against an exquisite antique Chinese side table, the other arm on her hip, gazing head-on at the viewer. Challenging them. Showing just who exactly was in charge of this domain.

Jamie had asked her to wear the dress he couldn’t get out of his dreams – bluer than the sky, bluer than her eyes. Happily she had agreed.

Several sessions, then, at his atelier in the East Village. She stood still as he sketched, telling her about his family back in Scotland, the love for art that his late mother had instilled in him, colorful anecdotes of his artist friends and the odd jobs they took to make ends meet.

He had served her tea and cigarettes. She had brought him paper and pigments, knowing from experience what her artist friends preferred. He had made her smile and laugh, and had brought light to her troubled eyes.

One session at the townhouse, so that he could carefully sketch the drawing room, the antique furniture and Persian carpets and framed Japanese prints neatly hanging on the walls. Heedless of Frank Randall frowning at him from the doorway, warning him to not break anything.

And then the next session with Claire was back at his studio, focusing on the details of her eyebrows and hands.

She was the perfect model – she held perfectly still. Even when he tentatively reached out a confident hand to adjust the tilt of her jaw, the angle of her head. Leaving behind smudges from the charcoal he so dearly loved to scribble and rub and shade on the paper she had brought for him.

Seeing his fingerprints on her porcelain features stirred something within him.

And then, nine sessions in, as he mixed his pigments to create the perfect shade of blue, she quietly opened up to him.

The parents who had died when she was five. The husband who sought comfort in the arms of other women. The abandoned dreams of ministering to the sick. The emptiness of parties and caviar and champagne and thousands of air kisses with women who envied her and whom she hated. The children her husband would not give her.

All the while he let her speak; mixed the colors; thought and thought and thought.

At the end of each session, it was customary for him to help her into her coat and walk her to Third Avenue, where he would catch a cab and make sure she was safely on her way home.

But at the end of that session – when she had changed from the blue gown back into her gray dress, stood waiting for him to help her into her coat – he had quietly walked up to her, looked into her eyes.

“Stay,” he had breathed.

The one word that had shifted everything.

She could choose to leave – and he would help her go. But she chose to stay; chose to let him help her out of her dress, lead her to the bed, and show him just how much he had come to mean to her.

That night he had filled fifteen sheets of paper with sketches of her – sleeping, reclining, sitting. Smiling. Nude, clothed. Drinking coffee, eating an apple. Always smiling.

His mind burst with thousands of ideas for photographs and paintings and drawings and lithographs. He whispered these ideas to her, and she kissed him with all her might.

Slowly the portrait took shape; slowly he accumulated more and more material of her.

He photographed her in the nude, standing in the middle of a sunbeam on the floor of his studio, arms raised ecstatically toward the heavens.

He painted her wrapped in a Japanese kimono, hair swept into a sober chignon, sipping tea in the courtyard.

He drew her sleeping beside him, the contours of quiet joy vibrant on her face.

And now – now the portrait was complete.

The setting and background were as agreed; so was her dress, and her pose, and the style of her hair.

But her face –

“You have brought joy to my eyes,” she whispered. “I look awake. Alive.”

“That’s how I see you,” he repeated softly, settling beside her on the bed, carefully balancing the painting across their laps.

“Frank won’t recognize me,” she mused.

“He won’t need to.” Jamie swallowed. “Right?”

Claire nodded. “Right. Your offer still stands?”

He didn’t even have to think. “You know it does.”

Then she smiled, so wide. “Let’s get dressed.”

“I’ll roll up the canvas. How long will it take you to gather your things, once we’re there?”

“Just a few minutes – I packed my bags a long time ago, you know.”

He dipped her in an exaggerated kiss, mindful of the painting.

“I can’t wait to begin forever with you,” she breathed against his lips.

“But not until we show him what he so foolishly threw away,” Jamie murmured.

Another quick peck of the lips – then a whirlwind of activity as they dressed.

“I was thinking that we would hang your portrait above the bed,” Jamie mused, helping Claire button her dress.

“That’s a lovely idea.” She turned, smiling, and rested her hands on his shoulders. “Only if we hang the nude beside it.”

Now it was his turn to smile widely. “How I love you, Claire.”

She kissed the tip of his nose. “Love you more. Shall we?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally posted at [Imagine Claire & Jamie](https://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/183026885419/please-more-of-artist-jamie-so-beautiful) on tumblr

_January 1976_

Elias Pound had known Mandy MacKenzie for all of four months – but he already knew he’d gladly follow her anywhere.

So when she proposed they spend an evening at a downtown art gallery – in a neighborhood she called SoHo (“But we have one of those in London,” he had protested – and she’d replied “This one has a capitalized H, silly goose”) – he immediately leapt at the chance to be with her. Even if it meant following her on the subway (“Don’t you have one of those in London?” she had teased), gaping at the half-beautiful, half-terrifying graffiti scrawled over the walls and seats and windows and exterior of the cars, stepping around the garbage and panhandlers on the platform at Times Square and Grand Central when they transferred from the 1 to the Shuttle and then to the 6.

Once above ground at Spring Street, he thought she’d made a mistake – for the neighborhood appeared to be stone dead, even at a relatively early hour.

“Where is everybody?” Elias dug his hands into the pockets of his peacoat, pulse rocketing from a mix of fear and sheer joy as Mandy slipped her mitten-clad hand through his arm.

“Barely anyone lives down here,” she explained, looking both ways before stepping off the curb. “It’s mostly artists and galleries. They love the big old buildings – fantastic twenty-foot ceilings in the rooms.”

A cab appeared out of nowhere, horn blaring. Mandy tugged his arm to stop – and the cab squealed by, the driver hurling obscenities. Calmly Mandy kept walking down Broadway, turning right onto Prince Street.

“And how did you find out about this exhibit?”

His eyes darted over to her; she just smiled and kept walking.

“Here we are!”

And they were – for in the first sign of life since they’d left the subway, a line snaked out of an industrial metal doorway and around the corner. Elias could only see a tiny sign above the door –  _The Broch Gallery –_ and a burly man out front, clearly the security guard.

Elias steeled himself to wait outside in the cold – regretting he hadn’t brought his knit cap – but then Mandy marched right up to the man at the door.

“Hi – I’m Mandy MacKenzie,” she explained. “Elias here is my guest. I should be on the list.”

The man fished in his pocket and produced an index card; he squinted, looked up at Mandy, and nodded. “All set, miss. Coat check is on your left.”

“Thank you,” she smiled sweetly, taking Elias’ hand and drawing him inside.

A woman wearing black took their coats and handed them each a small booklet. Before Elias could even glance at the cover, they turned another corner and came face-to-face with a panel of text on a gallery wall.

JAMES FRASER: ART WITHOUT LIMIT, 1920-1975 – A RETROSPECTIVE

Elias could see several dozen people milling around in at least six adjacent galleries, sipping champagne, studying the walls intently.

“Who’s James Fraser?” he whispered.

Mandy looped her arm through his. “Someone I’ve admired my whole life. You’ll see why. Don’t bother reading the labels – I’ll be your tour guide.”

And she was.

The first gallery displayed small pastels and watercolors of New York City street scenes in the 1920s – old cars rumbling down wide streets, women in elegant dresses pushing old-fashioned baby carriages on sidewalks, children playing tag on a gorgeous summer day in Prospect Park, ruddy-faced men toasting their joy in cavernous long-gone beer halls.

These were interspersed with photographs. A combination of society portraits and even more street scenes.

“Is that the Flatiron Building?”

“It is. Can you believe that it wasn’t yet twenty years old when this photograph was taken? Even then it was still so controversial.”

Elias tilted his head at a series of three of formal, posed paintings of different women. “Who were they?”

“Wives of wealthy businessmen and lawyers.” Mandy nodded a thank-you to the woman who offered a tray of snacks. “He made a good living as a portraitist. Back in the day, that was a way for men to show how much money they had – by paying an artist to paint their wives. Even after photography became popular – they still insisted on it.”

Elias chewed thoughtfully. “I’d think it still is a way for men to show how much money they have. Someone I went to school with – I remember there was a painting of his mother in the house. I never quite understood it.”

Mandy led them to the next room – and Elias’ jaw just about dropped.

It was another portrait – but so radically different from what he had just seen.

A beautiful woman – her curly brown hair rioting around her ethereal face – wearing a dress that could only be described as an incredible shade of electric blue. Surrounded by sumptuous plants and blue-and-white Chinese porcelain. Strongly, confidently facing the viewer – a hint of mischief evident on her perfect lips.

“It’s incredible, isn’t it?” Mandy squeezed his hand. “This was the first work that truly got him noticed.”

“I should think so,” Elias breathed. “She’s – she’s so  _alive_. So much more alive and present than in what we saw in the other room.”

“The artistry is without comparison,” Mandy agreed. “But the scandal that surrounded the painting made it even more notorious.”

“Scandal? What scandal? It’s a modest dress.”

She shook her head. “This portrait was commissioned by Frank Randall, on the occasion of his wife Claire’s thirtieth birthday, in the fall of 1925.”

“Frank Randall? As in Randall Steel?  _That_ Randall?”

“The same,” she grinned. “Anyway – Claire Randall was very famous in New York society at the time for throwing very grand parties at their townhouse on East Sixty-Eighth Street. Somehow James Fraser got an invitation to one of their parties – and once Frank learned he was an artist, he commissioned him to paint Claire.”

“I don’t see what’s so scandalous about that.”

Mandy smirked above her flute of champagne. “Well – you can imagine that Claire got to know the artist quite well as he painted her portrait. So well that when the painting was delivered to the Randall townhouse, she told Frank she was leaving him, packed her bags, and moved in with Jamie.”

“Oh my God!” Elias exclaimed. “Did she take the portrait with her?”

“Of course! It hung in Jamie’s studio on East Twelfth Street for many years.”

“And did they stay together?”

Mandy set down her empty flute on a passing waiter’s tray, and took Elias’ half-empty flute. “See for yourself.”

The next gallery was full of Claire Randall. Oil paintings of her draped in a Japanese kimono. Pastel drawings of her reclining nude in bed, surrounded by rumpled sheets. Striking, black-and-white photographs of her hands forming different shapes, and the curve of her spine, and the back of her neck.

“She was his muse,” Elias murmured.

Mandy nodded. “My favorite is right over there.”

It was a small photograph – just about as big as a letter-sized sheet of paper. At the bottom right of the frame was a reflection of the old-style camera; at the middle of the frame was Claire caught mid-laugh; and peeking over her shoulder was a man – hair parted down one side, eyes creasing with laughter.

“It’s called  _Joy_ ; he took the photograph on their wedding day,” Mandy whispered. “In a public bathroom at City Hall. Probably ten minutes after they exchanged vows.”

Elias swallowed, his heart soaring at the explosion of love and adoration captured so simply and elegantly in the photograph.

“I’m surprised Randall gave her a divorce.”

“Apparently she threatened to go to the papers with proof of all his affairs. My understanding is that it was settled quite quickly.”

He wanted to know more – so very much more – but she ushered him into the next gallery.

Here the artist’s style had clearly matured; the cityscapes were bolder in outline, brighter in their use of color.

“He immigrated from Scotland as a very young man. But New York City has always been his home. His art documents what it’s like to live here.”

It did – subways, and buses, and even photographs of airplanes landing at Kennedy or LaGuardia. Interspersed with photographs of Claire as she got older – still smiling, now in color – in what appeared to be the same East Twelfth Street studio.

Before he knew it, they were in the last gallery. Which held a single artwork – another painting of Claire, posed almost identically as she had been in the scandalous portrait. Surrounded by ferns, and Chinese porcelain; wearing another electric blue dress. Her face had more wrinkles, and her hair was gray – but she was still so vibrantly alive.

Mandy withdrew her arm, but he didn’t realize she had completely left his side until an unfamiliar voice spoke beside him.

“Personally I prefer this one to the older one.”

“I’d have to agree,” Elias remarked, turning to his new neighbor. “In fact – ”

He froze.

“It’s you,” he croaked.

Claire Fraser – hair still curly after all these years, wearing a bright green dress and gorgeous silver jewelry – smiled.

“It’s me,” she agreed. “Jamie painted this one to commemorate my eightieth birthday last October – and, of course, the fiftieth anniversary since the first one.”

“Oh my God,” Elias breathed. “I – you – um, you are very beautiful.”

Then Mandy appeared, and slung an arm around Claire’s side. “Are you flirting with my grandma?”

“Grandma?”

“Come on, Mandy – you’ll make the poor man suffer a heart attack right here. I thought you told me you liked him.”

Stupidly Elias stuck out one hand. “I’m Elias Pound.”

Claire laughed. “Yes, I know. Mandy’s told us all about you. You study engineering together, right?”

“Always had a head for numbers, that one.” An older man appeared beside Claire, and kissed her cheek. “Just like our daughter – her Mam. God knows where she got that from.”

Claire nodded at Elias. “Jamie, this is Elias.”

Elias gulped. “H-hi,” he stammered.

“Ach, no need to be shy, lad! I dinna bite.” Jamie Fraser heartily clapped Elias’ shoulder. “So – do ye like the paintings?”

“Be honest,” Mandy teased.

Elias cleared his throat. “I – um – yes. I’m still getting to know New York, and it’s so interesting to see how your work documents how the city has changed.”

Jamie looked over at his granddaughter, one still-red eyebrow raised. “Very astute observation. Good that he appreciates things that aren’t numbers.”

Mandy groaned. “Be nice, Grand-da. We go to museums all the time – we get in for free with our student IDs.”

Elias cleared his throat. “Also, sir, your work is one of the most honest and pure representations of love that I’ve ever seen. I – I can’t quite describe it, but I can just  _feel_  it pouring out of the frame. It makes my heart race. And that’s something that hasn’t changed – am I right?”

Jamie and Claire and Mandy – she had Jamie’s eyes, he realized – looked at him, eyes wide. Quietly Mandy stepped forward to take his hand, squeezing it. So proud.

“Thank you,” Jamie whispered, drawing Claire to his side. “You understand. She’s everything.”

“Yes,” Elias agreed, looking at Mandy. “She is.” 


End file.
